


Chances and Choices

by Glinda



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Abandonment, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Self-Sacrifice, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9922166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: What chance do they have? What choice do they have.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'I have watched you devastate to liberate ', which is from _At Least My Heart Was Open_ by Foy Vance.
> 
> From the first time I heard this song after seeing _Rogue One_ I knew that I was going to write something that riffed off from that line. I presumed it was going to be about Jyn and either of her father figures, but this story went somewhere different. Instead we have Jyn and the Rebellion, the chance and the choices, the ones they took and the ones they never got to make.

Jyn was a little over six years old when she joined the Rebellion. She was a little under sixteen years old when she left again. Saw Gerrera rescued her from one bunker as a child and abandoned her in another as a teenager. The way she sees it, the Empire took her parents and the Rebellion took her childhood, she doesn’t owe either of them a damn thing. 

~

Cassian can go to hell; nothing about this was ever her choice. She didn’t choose to join the Rebellion as a child; that was a choice her parents and Saw made for her. She didn’t choose to leave the Rebellion, Saw chose to abandon her – whatever he now says his reasons were, he didn’t bother to tell her them then. The Rebellion has only sought her out as a bargaining chip. The only real decisions she’s made as an adult before standing up in that Council meeting were purely and simply about staying alive. 

She’s seen the carnage after battles between the Rebellion and the Empire, both as a participant and a bystander. Among the devastation it’s hard to see this much-vaunted liberation – much less feel its worth the price paid. It’s hard to believe in some higher noble purpose when you’re surrounded by broken buildings and broken bodies. She looks at the senators and other politicians, listens to their politicking and their strategizing and their oh so noble ideals and fears. Until she saw what happened to Jedha she might even have sympathised with them. But they’re too focused on their choices to realise that what they really have here is a chance, a chance if not taken will mean no more true choices ever. The Empire will crush all rebellion without mercy – the only choice any more will be obey or die. 

She looks into the eyes of the pilots that Cassian brings to her. Soldiers of the Rebellion who have sacrificed so much for the cause, who desperately need that sacrifice, the terrible things they have done for it, to matter, to be for something. What choice did any of them ever have? When their planets were annexed? When the storm troopers marched through the streets of their home cities crushing opposition or shooting stallholders for vague infractions? How old were they when they realised that obedience wasn’t a guarantee of safety? Whose blood was that knowledge paid in? What action caused them to cross their own personal line in the sand, convinced them that there was no turning back, no way to go back to who they used to be. 

~

Bodhi had a choice. He chose to listen to her father and help him with his plan. That choice got him tortured and may yet get him killed, but still he is certain and sure that he made the right one. What else did he pay for his choice with that they don’t know about? The safety and love of family and friends? Or was that a price he’d already paid in becoming an Imperial Pilot? Jyn knows he came from a world well and truly under the jackboot of the Empire, but not if he was a conscript or signed up willingly. Or if that was even a choice, serve or starve is often the reality of life on Imperial worlds, even if its not official stated policy. Did he ever really have a choice? She keeps her thoughts to herself, allows him the dignity of his choices and his redemption.

Cassian looks at her like she’s the first real choice he’s had in longer than he can remember. Like she’s a choice he wants to take. They’re more alike than either of them care to admit. When, ‘I’d be honoured to die by your side’, is a sentiment that they can reach an unspoken mutual agreement on and can imagine no greater compliment. 

~

This is her choice. She chooses to honour her father’s sacrifice and keep fighting; she chooses to fight with these people to redeem their own sacrifices. Jyn can’t imagine making any other choice, but for once in her life that feels more like certainty than like helpless.

Perhaps that’s the true power of The Force. That it shows those who trust in it, where the chances lie. The moments when their choices can change the world or save the Galaxy.

They are all of them between a rock and a hard place. For them, all choices are fundamentally between the illusion of safety and outright danger. The greatest gift they can get is the chance to make their choices count. This is their chance.


End file.
